Road to Cedarwood Festival 2022

Two Brothers in Christ

During the first of many lockdowns in 2020, I joined a small virtual church to help keep myself sane while I was locked up in one very small room in a very crowded house with my family. In this virtual church I accidently acquired a couple of brothers, Seymour and David. My life hasn’t been the same since. Just like with any family, there are days that I want to strangle the two of them, but these brothers in Christ have pushed me more than any other person in my life. Seymour is kind, encouraging and very easy to talk to. David doesn’t seem to understand the meaning of the word no and is constantly pushing me out of my comfort zone. The last two years with my brothers have been unforgettable.

How I Got Involved

Before Covid shut the whole world down for two years, I had made the decision that 2020 was going to be the year that I started meeting Christians from outside my very small church family. I also wanted to get closer to God and to start rebuilding my life after getting made homeless right at the end of 2019. I’d seen videos from events like Big Church Day Out and really wanted to experience a Christian Festival thinking this was a way to both met new christens and grow in my relationship with God. Sadly the closest one was south of Sheffield and too difficult to get to. Then an answer to prayer appeared on Instagram. An advert for Cedarwood 2020. A Christian Festival in the actual North East of England that would be easy to attend. I immediately messaged them to enquire how to get tickets and quickly got a response asking if I would like to volunteer on the media team as a photographer. Of course, I had to say yes to this.

Fast-forward to March, and disaster. The whole country is put into lockdown and Cedarwood 2020 is postponed to 2021, and then to 2022. God started work on the 2020 prayer. The first thing he did was give me courage to join the Virtual Church David had decided to put together. So there I was on the first day, knowing no one on this zoom call, putting all of my trust in God. As always, God not only answered my prayer, but he exceeded all of my expectations. He didn’t just give me new Christen friends outside of my church family, but he gave me a whole other family. My relationship with God also grew far more than I ever expected and I started to put more and more trust into him. As I got to know my new family more, I was also pulled deeper into David’s vision for Cedarwood, forming closer relationships with these two brothers of mine, and starting to form new ideas of my own.

Cedarwood Festival Vision

“Cedarwood Festival is an independent event and registered Charity, with a vision to unite the Church in worship and mission taking place in County Durham, in the north of England.”

I love the vision David has for uniting churches of all identities. It very much lines up with my belief that we are all connected as brothers and sisters through Christ. My belief that all churches have a role within the community. That there is no wrong way to worship as long as you a developing and deepening a strong, lasting relationship with God. That you accept Jesus as your lord and saviour, believing he died on the cross for our sins. Do I agree with everything that different churches do and does every church fit me personally? Definitely not, but I can certainly respect and love each of my brothers and sisters in Christ.

I appeal to you, dear brothers and sisters, by the authority of our Lord Jesus Christ,
to live in harmony with each other. Let there be no divisions in the church.
Rather, be of one mind, united in thought and purpose.

1 Corinthians 1:10

1 Corinthians really says is best. When we work together in harmony as one church under Christ’s banner, we are able to do so much more than if we where to do it on our own. When we pray and worship together, we are louder with our words having much more power. When we work together we are capable of greater things, ultimately bringing more lost people back to Christ. When we work together, the enemy doesn’t stand a chance.

How I Fit In

In my early days as a Christian I found myself very drawn to the book of Romans. I remembered one verse quite clearly about the body of Christ.

Just as our bodies have many parts and each part has a special function, so it is with Christ’s body.
We are many parts of one body, and we all belong to each other.
Romans 12:4-5

This told me that I have a role within the church. I am just as important as any other person within the church body, and being new in my faith does not make me any less important. Our senior pastors are important as the heads of our church, but my little finger on a camera button is equally important for leading the lost to Christ. It is the same with Cedarwood. David may be the brain with the big vision for uniting the churches, but again, my little finger on that button is equally important for helping to unite the churches for an amazing weekend of prayer, worship, and learning. I feel incredibly blessed by God to be gifted with my creative spirit and for him to be able to use that through me to help build the kingdom. I am grateful that he is able to use the images I create to inspire others and to ultimately get more people excited about Cedarwood and building a deeper, stronger relationship with him.

The Worship Tour

Currently David has me roped into the Worship Tour which is happening across the North East on the lead up to Cedarwood 2022. We are only half way through and so far it has been amazing! I’ve had the pleasure of meeting many more creatives spirits using their talents to worship and serve Jesus. I have had the great honour of being able to pray for fellow brothers and sisters in Christ and have even myself been prayed for and prophesied over. I have had an immense amount of fun capturing the memories of this tour on camera and have completely fallen down the rabbit hole of Christian Ministry Photography. Not only has this Worship Tour been amazing for getting our message out about what Cedarwood is about and gathering more volunteers, but it has inspired me to start up another part of Zestlight Photography with the focus on media for ministry.

There is so much more to come over the next few weeks. We still have five more dates left on the Worship tour and would love to see you there. We have Darlington, Sunderland, York, Newcastle and Durham left on the tour. If you would like to come along to worship and pray with us, please click on this link. We have enough space for everyone on the road to Cedarwood 2022!